


John, the week after

by Meretseger68



Series: Always John [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dermagraphism, M/M, References to previous drug use, The world doesn't revolve around Sherlock, What am I saying?, plot without porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-03
Updated: 2014-09-03
Packaged: 2018-02-16 01:35:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2250969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meretseger68/pseuds/Meretseger68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and another trip to the pub. This time he finds out something unexpected from Lestrade.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John, the week after

Two men having a quiet drink or three. Taking their time. It started off as something to take the edge off before going home but they both seem to have been putting off the ‘going home’ part of the deal. The pub isn’t fashionable. It’s not too loud, it isn’t glaringly bright but comfortable for its tired punters at the end of a long day. The low background murmur of conversation - along with the inexorable rise and fall of left and right hands belonging to the shorter, blond man and the slightly older silver fox in turn - encourages honesty.

“This thing you’ve got going …” a not question, casual and stealthy crept up on the blond man in a comfortable pause. Neither man caught the eye of the other - that would be far too personal.

“Thing? What thing? I don’t have a thing.” The words said ‘no’ but in the not too bright room a healthy skin tone may have looked a little pink.

“Yes you have. You and that warrant card thief you live with.” Lestrade put down his empty glass and leaned forward. “You two are together, you’re having a … thing.” The only response was a non-committal huff. “I’m the police, I know when my friends are having a … thing.” The other man studied the back of a beer mat. Intently.

“It’s not what you think.” Lestrade laughed, a short bark to show he knew he was right. John didn’t look up but began an almost forensic deconstruction of the beer mat, layer by soggy layer. Patting the shorter man on the shoulder the DI got up to get the next round in.

“Tell me what I should be thinking then.” The whiskey tumbler was set down on a pristine compressed card square, Scotland Yard clearly meant to pursue his line of enquiry.

“Greg …” Uh-oh, first names, this was going to be serious “… it’s just. It’s not … oh, I don’t know what it is …”

“But you are sleeping together?”

“Technically yes, we have … but …” Lestrade was a friend. They’d known this would be awkward but Lestrade was a friend, and he helped stop Sherlock being bored by giving him puzzles to solve, and he must have known about the cabbie all along ... who else could John talk to about his thing / not thing / whatever it was with his mad flatmate? “I’ve slept with him but not ‘slept’ with him. So much for ‘Three Continents Watson’ I haven’t even so much as seen him naked.” John ran a tired hand across his face and suddenly felt old. He waited for the inevitable scorn.

“Oh.” Oddly enough there was no sign of laughter on the older man’s face. “But at the Palace?”

“Got a glimpse of rear end and looked away. Pretended to be polite. Didn’t know I was interested then. Been cursing myself about that.” John didn’t know what else to say. Lestrade seemed to take his time thinking. If he was thinking then John hoped that something intelligent (even after a few bevvies) would come out.

“He’s doing the ‘don’t even look at me or I’ll bruise’ routine then?” The tight little nod was an eloquent answer. John was surprised that Lestrade knew about that particular quirk, more surprised when the next word spoken by the DI was “Shame.” Lestrade shared a sad smile and John had to wonder what was coming next as he clearly settled in to tell a story.

“I first met Sherlock back when he called himself ‘Scott’. I was working on a case where a string of young homeless guys had woken up dead and suddenly there’s this bag of bones with a mouth that made me feel very insistent that I was not gay (they both shrugged at each other – what could you do?) feeding me information and suggesting where I should look. At first I thought it was just a way of getting a packet of fags or a hot meal out of me and I realised he’d cracked the case. Tramps. Hardly going to make my name but it was a start.

“After that I’d see him in doorways, or the overhang of viaducts, car parks or railway arches. Always huddled into an army surplus great coat about five sizes too big. Took a while then I realised he was the one finding me. A few words, sometimes a name and address. Always helping. Then he was just gone and I started to think maybe I’d imagined him. Then I figured that maybe the posh boy had had enough of roughing it and gone back to Mummy.

“I was never completely reliant on him you know. Just had to go the slow way round with being the law and everything. I’d worked out there was a difference between junkie Scott and the intelligent voice he used when no one else could hear him, I just didn’t know it was Sherlock. Anyway, every now and then I thought I would catch a glimpse of someone who could have been Scott, you know, but cleaned up. I was never certain enough to get a closer look and wasn’t sure I’d wanted to risk showing either of us up if I was wrong … or even if I was right.

“Summer comes around. I think I’d subconsciously built this scene with Scott drinking Pimms and playing croquet or being looked after by some Russian oligarch sugar daddy or whatever. Wherever he was it was summer and that had to be better for him than the endless winter we’d had." Neither of them felt the need to comment that Lestrade's first thought had been that Sherlock ... Scott would be gay.

“So.” Damn, the whiskey had evaporated. Lestrade looked meaning fully at John. The telepathy of the slightly tipsy ensured that replacements appeared so he could continue with his story. “So. One night I’m putting the bins out and I hear what I think is an animal in the undergrowth. House in the suburbs then, all very aspirational before two sets of alimony, and people had been talking about foxes.”

“It was Sherlock?”

“It was Scott. Filthy, thinner than ever, beyond being able to do anything much but he’d followed me home like some kind of lost puppy. I wanted to bring him in but Fat Arse (John kept his face straight, he’d heard the names used for Greg’s ex-wives before, Fat Arse was number one) wouldn’t let me, she was convinced he would be crawling with all kinds of bugs and insisted I cleaned him up. I found an old car blanket and stripped him off on the patio while she ran a bath. He weighed next to nothing but still tried to wriggle away from me, going on about how I was hurting him as I carried him up to the bathroom.

“Fat Arse was watching from the doorway like she’s scared he’s a wild animal and will turn on me any minute, but she doesn’t offer to help, just looks at him like he’s fallen out of the sky or something. I’d seen the homeless bodies at Barts and had an idea what to expect so I tried to hold my breath and just get on with it. I was wrong. He was dirty and he smelled right enough but the dirt wasn’t really ingrained, it had been applied deliberately, like make up. I was actually washing away junkie Scott. Then I saw the track marks and it wasn’t all just an act. Second change of water and he’s either fallen asleep or passed out in the warm. At least he’d stopped going on about bruising. But …” Lestrade shifted uncomfortably … “but he _had_ started to bruise. I could see where I’d got hold of his arm to lift him, like a hand print had been inked on. There were lines on him where the blanket had been folded and fingerprints that would have put me away in a domestic abuse case.

“Out of the bath and I patted him dry with the softest towels we had, didn’t want to make things any worse. At least he was clean and Fat Arse let me put him to bed in the spare room. There were no open wounds, nothing that looked immediately dangerous so I thought a good kip would do him a world of good and tried to work out who he was from his clothes. Nothing, no ID, not even labels in his clothes. Even the syringes in his drug kit were unmarked. Takes effort to be that anonymous. The only thing I learned was that he looked like a very careful junkie.

“Next morning and Fat Arse was up and out early, something at the racquet club she said but I wasn’t really listening. I look in on our stray and see he’s kicked the sheet off in the night. Most of the marks from my handling had subsided but there were still some bruises, looked like he’d taken some beatings. I didn’t want to disturb him, or hurt him any more but I couldn’t look away from him.

“His body shouldn’t have worked. He’s thin now but then he was all out of proportion, like he had too many joints and had been put together from left over sketches by that weird Swiss bloke that designed Alien. There were none of the junkie twitches or the scary intelligence that went with the voice and he looked just so young. If I’d got to know Scott, and seen glimpses of Sherlock behind the mask then I think that asleep I was just looking at … what’s he call it? … the transport.”

“What did you do?” John sat forward, trying not to rush his friend but wanting to know … wanting to move on and away from the sudden feeling of jealousy that bloomed in his chest.

“He was too gorgeous, someone should have been missing him. I figured even Russian oligarchs might have had feelings.” Lestrade’s comment wasn’t an answer and it did nothing to stop the tight sensation.

“What did you do?”

“I finger printed him using some stencil inks that Fat Arse had insisted on for a stupid hobby, called in a uniform and got his arts and crafts ten card put into missing persons along with a polaroid of his face. The private ambulance arrived an hour later to take him away.”

John stared at the detective. Of course that’s what he would have done. No guessing who would have had people able to collect Sherlock at short notice. Lestrade looked uncomfortable.

“I was in the spare room, just watching him sleep when the phone rang and I was encouraged to look out of the window in time to see a black Mariah pull up behind a blacked out Jag. The voice ordered me to let his staff come in and collect his little brother.”

“So you did? That easily?”

“You know Mycroft. He started telling me about Fat Arse and the tennis coach, about me and my career prospects. Ten minutes later Scott was gone and I had a number of someone with the initials MH stored in my phone and instructions to call him should the little brother ever lose himself in my direction again.”

Time was being called at the bar. Reality would hit with the cool quiet air outside.

“Mycroft took him away and that was that. The year after he turned up at a press conference. He stood at the back but didn’t say anything – which much have killed him when you think about it. He waited till everyone else had gone and introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes and said he wanted to continue our previous association. He even thanked me for getting him to hospital when he’d been unwell but didn’t seem to remember the actual events.” Deleted, thought John, too painful – too shameful? – for him to want to remember. “John, I never told him that I’ve seen … the transport. I didn’t know if it would be a bit too weird for him.”

The bar was emptying, chances to say anything else being reduced as the noise reduced to individual conversations “Do the others know?” That tight feeling of jealousy had become something fiercely protective.

“I’ve never told anyone else. The ten card and the photo got lost in the paperwork somehow. This crew are more recent, they never met Scott and he’s never been mentioned. It’s always been Sherlock. And then it was all our luck that it became Sherlock and John.”

They shrugged into their jackets and said goodnight as they hit the pavement. Home for each of them was in the opposite direction. “Good luck with it mate, I know he’s an arse at times but I think you’re doing what you both need to do … whatever it is or isn’t. When you’re ready to tell people then I’ll do my best to look surprised, and when you’re not around I’ll stand up for you both. If you want to talk you know where I am.” Lestrade nodded over to the opposite side of the road, a black car with blacked out windows had just pulled up and a familiar familiar got out. Anthea, intent as ever on her Blackberry, gave only the briefest wave to beckon the sighing doctor over to the open door. “I think your lift has just arrived. Good luck with that too.”

**Author's Note:**

> Poor John. He's not got very far with Sherlock and now he finds out more than he bargained for from Lestrade.  
> I just had an idea that different parts of Sherlock's personality could be personified in his names - Scott the junkie, Sherlock the brains ... William the transport?  
> I often have mad ideas like that.  
> And now Mycroft has John - what further torments are to come? I don't know yet but I'm sure I'll think of something.
> 
> Please let me know what you think. One day I promise I'll read the instructions.


End file.
